The country world may have been a little surprised to get a song as deep as "Dirt" from Florida Georgia Line, who'd blown up thanks to a string of lighthearted songs. And at first, the song's writers — Rodney Clawson and Chris Tompkins — didn't think the lyrics would go below the surface, either.

They told the story behind the song to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Bart Herbison: I’m going to do this through my personal lens. So, it was a monster (hit), and I was running up to D.C. all the time when it came out. I hadn’t heard it. On one of those trips, everyone is talking about “Dirt,” and I’m like, “Dirt”? And they said, “Rodney and Chris use it as a vehicle for all the emotions of life.” I’m like, “OK.” And then I heard it.

Let me make every other songwriter in Nashville mad. That may be the best use of a premise I’ve ever heard in the modern country song. ...Take us back to when it was written.

Rodney Clawson: I’ll let Chris start, because it was his idea.

Chris Tompkins: We had a fairly new house, so we were putting in a pool. And I looked outside, and I was staring out the window and I saw a big pile of dirt out there. And, I think in the morning, I was drinking coffee. You know, I was kind of just doing my morning zombie thing. It just kind of popped in my head, the whole idea. … I did not intend for the song to take off in such an emotional way. Originally, I was thinking on almost a Friday night basis … you get your hands in it and you spin your tires on it, you write her name in it. I was trying to think of things you do with dirt that you could put in the song, basically. But, then immediately I thought of Rodney. Luckily, he and I had a co-write coming up and I was like, he’s from Texas. He’s Mr. Dirt. And it just worked out.

Bart Herbison: When you first heard it, what were you like?

Rodney Clawson: He’s like, “Man, you’re going to think I’m stupid, but I got an idea to write a song called 'Dirt.' " … I was like, “I think I can do that. I’ve farmed in Texas for 15 years, so I’ve been around a lot of dirt.” In the chorus, it kind of shifted gears. I remembered my dad farmed for more than 50 years. And my granddad until he was 95.

... Then, you always want to have a way to land it. I think I was messing around with the line about a girl having mud on her pants or something and we just stumbled into the end of it. ... It ended up, you know you throw a girl in there, but then you want to marry her. You put her in a house that is on that dirt. That kind of sealed the deal.

BH: Segueing into the perfect act to cut it at the perfect time in their career. So, Florida Georgia Line just blew up. A lot of hard work, but when they hit, I mean, it was insane. This was the first single on their second album. I personally believe they needed a song that was serious … and they had some on their first record. But I think people went, “Oh!” I did. And I love Tyler (Hubbard) and Bryan (Kelley). How did they get it, and what was your reaction when you first heard the cut?

RC: When we wrote the song, we did not really have anybody in mind. But we knew it was kind of like one of those songs that could be like Blake or Jason or Luke Bryan. … We were not necessarily thinking about Florida Georgia Line. But Seth (England), their manager, was definitely looking for what you said. He knew the first record was four or five party songs in a row, which blew them up. Every artist has to slightly shift gears a little bit just to have a bigger footprint.

BH: I ask this in a lot of Story Behind the Song interviews, but man, that (song) has to touch so many people’s lives. What do people say to you about that? Because, it’s from the cradle to the grave. And it marks all of the emotions a human being would go through.

CT: Oh yeah! I mean, all my family members. For some reason it was not one of the songs that I thought everybody would grab onto. But I’ve had a bunch of friends and family from back home come up to me and talk about (it) because we’ve got a little bit of everything in there. We’ve got the Friday night thing, we’ve got the football thing in there. It just kind of grabbed each little moment of how we grew up. We are just the same as everybody else. I think people recognize that. For some reason, even the darker part of “Dirt,” you hear it and you’re like "OK, this is my life and I’m proud of it."

BH: Well, that’s what I thought.

RC: For me, when I go back out, I end up playing a lot of shows out in Texas, Kansas, and back out there. Every show I play, I have people come up to me, they’ve grown up on a farm or ranch, and they want to talk about the song.

About the series

In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, "Story Behind the Song" features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing one of their compositions.